In my view people become willing to do purchases, if a game offers them a good enough healthy balance between enjoyment, a.k. positive 'frustration' and negative frustration factors.

Though I do not think premium account, and the perk it offers on progression vs free, gives a complete enough picture.

Yeah I agree with the function of WoT prem account in your example and what it gives.

It can definitely increase part of the enjoyment players perceives in their progression through the game. I enjoyed the few free prem days given and I was inclined to perhaps get some prem time for an ongoing grind.

But due to some of those negative frustration factors I regretfully became reluctant again. A WoT premium account for me does not offset enough some of those negatives factors. That by design cannot be influenced (luckily!) by a player, but does induce frustration in players.

I think that for a lot of players that is a contributing factor why some takes frequent breaks or just leave (invested or not) all together.

Many games do well with "goodwill" purchases I will call them. But consider the age of this game and how long it has been going. The age of the game affects the strategies you can use for games like this.

Part of the frustration with WoT is inherant in the game from a time in Free to Play games looked very different to modern free-to-play and the grinding of course is always going to cause elements of frustration.

The best we can do is try and get the balance while keeping the developers fed and working while making sure the playerbase is happy enough to play but inclined to pay into the game Occasionally you can drop a plate, but it's a tight balance to get right. That's why feedback is important and discussions like this invaluable in helping the communication

sabre_ferret, on 16 July 2019 - 08:46 PM, said:

Yeah, purple stats = repeated errors. Do you even play the game?

Yes I do, you can see the number of my battles below my name readily, may i suggest you take a peek. The rest of the sentence.... I'm not entirely sure your statement or what you're trying to establish? Can you please clarify?

Leroy_Jenkinss, on 16 July 2019 - 09:21 PM, said:

Come on dude back in the LoL when there was still IP system you could buy runes dirt cheap for IP you got really fast.Rune pages was expensive to buy for IP and RP and only advantage they give you was a tiny bit of flexibility when in champ select and i can bet you 95% of playerbase back then was having two rune pages like me and yet even with two rune pages you could still replace the runes anytime you want in your rune pages but not when you was already in the lobby for game.People complain about that and what Riot did, they removed Runes and now we have only mastery that is free and fully unlocked day one.

One thing that is also good with LoL is that you can buy any champ with real money anytime and yet Riot are constantly buffing and nerfing those champs without hesitation for game balance and WG cant do the same with premium tanks is beyond my mind but OK.

AT8 and weakspots dude do you play this game AT8 have only one weak spot frontally on commander hatch that is still 152mm thick that you need to hit in the center to be able to pen rest of tank front is 203mm flat.Im somewhat ok with RNG if RNG is true RNG and not a tool to help those 45% to hit shoots on the move and pen things they aren't suposed to pen.

Im sure this game is rigged to pull everyone to that 50%

I remember once a SU 152 pen my jumbo uper plate that was angled so hard that was an autobounce for every round in the game to bait a shot and win the game and yet somehow dude pen about 175 mm effective well angled armor with its 135mm of pen on its AP rounds and no he didn't overmatch anything he just flush hit my uper plate and left me on like 12 hp and i just stop and look like WHAT how. Surprise Surprise dude was 42% player i wonder how he pen that hmmmmmm.

Only thing i'm sure about that i never ever raged in any game before i installed WoT on my comp or break any hardware.

Now i can say i break 3 keyboards playing WoT.

You could buy with Real money, but the point still remains it cost real money, and those people buying those had a much higher advantage over those that didn't. More so when new sets were released. Playing ranked in those days for instance was an absolute nightmare when you had to combine tier 1s into 2's and 2s into 3's and hope you got the right position or you were doomed. I too played the game from the very beginning when ADC went mid. I remember the pain at the time of grinding as a free to play player there too, and as soon as you put money there with the level and xp boosters for instance, life became signficantly easier, being able to buy the new champions faster etc.

2 rune pages was definitely how you would lose, when you start getting to the old levels of what is now Diamond, without multiple Rune pages you stood very little change of maintaining your elo.

The champion balance is something they're excellent on, but at the same time they have a champ banning system for those they miss in most games now, you have role selection and a large part of the game is meta shifting. Seasons of ADC then Bruiser, then assassin and so forth. It's a little easier when it's usually the item changes that will swing these shifts.

For the weakspots I can only suggest you use one of the many 3D model sites now available and review the big shiny easy pent spots If he's able to pen you that reliably, then you will be able to him also with sufficient aim. But again if you'd like further assistance this will require a replay I'm sorry to say.

I do need to highlight once more, there is no rigging, at all, in any shape.

psychobear, on 16 July 2019 - 09:40 PM, said:

MM fixes? Thought you guys have fixed the MM. Are you working on it again? Should we expect a well balanced MM in say a couple of years time? Or more?

Tank rebalance? If i remember correctly, you started a big rebalance process when Sandbox was first launched, some years ago. Started with tier 10 and said once that was fixed, you'd move down the tiers and balance everything. In fact, all you've managed to achieve was f*ck up tier 10 balance even more, making the tier virtually unplayable. Then you've stopped and completely forgot about the whole balancing thing. Should we expect the same this time? I definitely think so.

Friendly fire removal? That's not needed and won't fix any of the core problems of the game. But hey, "fixing" unnecesary things while completely ignoring the real problems is one of the core traits of your company, so that's that.

A whole host of other changes this yet alone? Lots of words for saying nothing, don't you think?

And by the way, when are you going to address the artillery problem?!!!

Sorry for the maybe harsh tone, but you guys should really consider one thing: our patience has limits too, and it seems that more and more of us are just about reaching them, which directly reflects into dropping of player numbers as well as dropping of paying players numbers. If nothing else, that should at least be of concern to you. But it looks like it isn't. Oh well.

You mentioned a lack of work to help improve the game, the MM changes are part of those and continue to be monitored and improved all the time.

For the tanks to be rebalanced, I suggest you review the WG fest announcement. Reddit QnA and AMA, alternatively you can see the super-test news, common test news and the sandbox news on tank balancing as a whole with hp and shells as well as lines like the Swedish heavies the German mediums and so forth.

I understand some frustration, but unfortunately people have a short memory for all the changes that have taken place and only think about the ones that haven't. No matter how much work is done and how many improvements are rolled out, it's always "But what about......" As I'm sure you can imagine, game balancing on a scale of WoT with all the variables is not an easy or fast task to perform.

TungstenHitman, on 16 July 2019 - 09:46 PM, said:

Not too much lately I don't know is it school kids or what but the standard is really bad and teammates are the biggest problem for me at the moment they either follow me or grief. Not only clueless but a sh*tty "this is my spot!" boom! sort of attitude to go with along with pushers and blockers just really a lot lately no wonder they are bringing in a no team damage soon since they must be inundated with tickets and player numbers dropping from bans and I eventually get tilted myself obviously there's only so many battles of that sort of snotty childish clueless guff you can take before you have enough and stop playing for the evening. I hope things settle down again soon.

I can tell you that exam season is nigh and that school holidays are fast approaching if not already with college and Universities out for the Summer. Maybe this shift in the players is something you may notice while others are busy with exams and enjoying the nice weather and going on holiday too

Are you on the development team, or even have anything to do with the backend? If not, you have no idea whether your statement is true or false.

Well you could y'know read the forums and make your own research if you aren't convinced... But since it seems you haven't even got a clue what constitutes rigging, I highly doubt anything rational will reach you. Whatever floats your boat, but I find it hypocritical that you still press battle every day multiple times.

It isn't really rocket science. Track the average PR/WR/wn8 of green and blue for 100-1k games (more gives you more reliable results), track all non-killing shots, and track the yellow/green pen results. Come back with results and then you have your point of talking about rigging.

I understand some frustration, but unfortunately people have a short memory for all the changes that have taken place and only think about the ones that haven't. No matter how much work is done and how many improvements are rolled out, it's always "But what about......" As I'm sure you can imagine, game balancing on a scale of WoT with all the variables is not an easy or fast task to perform.

Of course people have a short memory for all the changes that have taken place and only think about the ones that haven't. In this particular case it's only natural and there's a reason for it. It's becouse the changes that have taken place were either wrong ones or irrelevant ones. Or both. You guys keep fixing things that don't need fixing and making changes that nobody asked for, while completely ignoring the real problems which the playerbase have been pointing out to you all along. and then you act surprised that people don't appreciate the changes you make. This is just so rich that it would be funny if it wasn't so stupid.

And yes, i know that game balancing on the scale of WoT is not an easy or fast task to perform, but that's under no circumstances an excuse for delaying it for years, while wasting resources on irrelevant things.

I welcome any research made into matter. Too bad most rigging claimers are similiar to Jehovas' witnesses on their blind Faith. I guess your reply posits you between those and trolls.

Did I claim that rigging was happening? No.

I questioned whether the EU community guy has anything to do with the backend. Despite him saying that he does, i sincerely doubt it and he should not be making claims of which he does not have first-hand experience. The community team are the same people responsible for claiming how awesome British lights would be after all, they clearly have no connection to those who write the code.

22:47 Added after 3 minutes

eekeeboo, on 16 July 2019 - 11:21 PM, said:

For the weakspots I can only suggest you use one of the many 3D model sites now available and review the big shiny easy pent spots If he's able to pen you that reliably, then you will be able to him also with sufficient aim.

You have literally not played this game, have you? Do you really think that all vehicles can pen each other reliably, and that all weakspots are easy to hit when fully aimed?

And if you find playing higher tiers etc not to your liking. Then find tanks and tiers more for your area or fun factor. If that's not something either. Then why play if you don't even have fun? The only reason why I've been around for so long. Is because I don't play tier X that much. Have avoided tier 8 in half my tanks... inc the IS-6. And play mostly 6-7 and 9. As that's where the fun is for me. Even with the wheels. As I find them useless more so then annoying in randoms most games. As most in it die in the first 2 min for me to rage quit over them.

Same here and I really don't understand the mentality of people who are not having fun in randoms, not having fun in FL, not having fun in ranked yet will bang on trying to complete missions or whatever to get pixel tanks which they can only use in the same modes they don't have fun in. It defies logic.

And the "I've invested time/money into the game" line I see so often. No you didn't you spent your free time and some disposable income on entertainment. It's no different to a Netflix subscription.

I don't like some of the upcoming changes, will the result be a game breaker for me? Probably not, I'll probably adapt and every so often go on about how the good old days with cross team chat and team damage were so much better but if it does ruin my enjoyment I'll just stop playing.

Yes I do, you can see the number of my battles below my name readily, may i suggest you take a peek. The rest of the sentence.... I'm not entirely sure your statement or what you're trying to establish? Can you please clarify?

You can't possibily be so dim as to think that someone getting purple stats can get <40% WR without the MM being the cause. If I ran around team-killing everyone and decapping my own team I shouldn't be able to get that low a win rate. You are either showing an incredible lack of knowledge or you are being dishonest.

Of course people have a short memory for all the changes that have taken place and only think about the ones that haven't. In this particular case it's only natural and there's a reason for it. It's becouse the changes that have taken place were either wrong ones or irrelevant ones. Or both. You guys keep fixing things that don't need fixing and making changes that nobody asked for, while completely ignoring the real problems which the playerbase have been pointing out to you all along. and then you act surprised that people don't appreciate the changes you make. This is just so rich that it would be funny if it wasn't so stupid.

And yes, i know that game balancing on the scale of WoT is not an easy or fast task to perform, but that's under no circumstances an excuse for delaying it for years, while wasting resources on irrelevant things.

One of the changes for you that you consider wrong was the mm change? As from my experience in the community and talking to the player base on so many areas. "Fix mm" was one of the most spammed statements

Further to this with the onyoing changes to ammo and hp pools. When people ask for ammo to be looked at and for low tier games to be made fun and so forth. These are not irrelevant things. These are things you probably personally don't care about. But a great many others do.

07:23 Added after 1 minute

gav00, on 16 July 2019 - 10:43 PM, said:

Did I claim that rigging was happening? No.

I questioned whether the EU community guy has anything to do with the backend. Despite him saying that he does, i sincerely doubt it and he should not be making claims of which he does not have first-hand experience. The community team are the same people responsible for claiming how awesome British lights would be after all, they clearly have no connection to those who write the code.

22:47 Added after 3 minutes

You have literally not played this game, have you? Do you really think that all vehicles can pen each other reliably, and that all weakspots are easy to hit when fully aimed?

again please check the record. And you question my game knowlege about rigging. Please be aware of what you imply.

07:26 Added after 4 minutes

Homer_J, on 17 July 2019 - 01:48 AM, said:

Same here and I really don't understand the mentality of people who are not having fun in randoms, not having fun in FL, not having fun in ranked yet will bang on trying to complete missions or whatever to get pixel tanks which they can only use in the same modes they don't have fun in. It defies logic.

And the "I've invested time/money into the game" line I see so often. No you didn't you spent your free time and some disposable income on entertainment. It's no different to a Netflix subscription.

I don't like some of the upcoming changes, will the result be a game breaker for me? Probably not, I'll probably adapt and every so often go on about how the good old days with cross team chat and team damage were so much better but if it does ruin my enjoyment I'll just stop playing.

you sir are determined to wear out the button!

sabre_ferret, on 17 July 2019 - 06:51 AM, said:

You can't possibily be so dim as to think that someone getting purple stats can get <40% WR without the MM being the cause. If I ran around team-killing everyone and decapping my own team I shouldn't be able to get that low a win rate. You are either showing an incredible lack of knowledge or you are being dishonest.

I didn't say that. Firstly purple stats intones xvm and not WG. But with the tools given....

People get "purple" because they understand elements of the game and know how to play it well. Whether seal clubbing, padding or just a really good player. Generally the better you are at a game... the more you win.

Please take the time to re-read what I said and if you are having difficulty understanding elements, please clarify which.

I didn't say that. Firstly purple stats intones xvm and not WG. But with the tools given....

People get "purple" because they understand elements of the game and know how to play it well. Whether seal clubbing, padding or just a really good player. Generally the better you are at a game... the more you win.

Please take the time to re-read what I said and if you are having difficulty understanding elements, please clarify which.

For more concise message =rigging does not exist.

Why do you keep ignoring the disparity between a purple WN8 and a exceptionally low WR? You keep admitting that a high WN8 should correspond with a high WR but fail to address the disparity. Clearly you are not going to admit that your MM is broken and that players are purposefully put on losing streaks, but you can't even come up with a good excuse for it!

I'm having fun. Some days more then the other, but that's the nature of playing with random people online I suppose.

Sometimes I get frustrated, either by my teams or by a series of meh matchups. But that gets balanced out by getting fun teams/teammates and/or fun matchups. There have been times where I didn't had much fun with the game & that led to me taking long breaks (biggest ones were over the old rigid 3-5-7 MM that really shafted T8 gameplay for a long time)

Now MM is better & hence I'm playing more, because I have more fun too.

Still, most fun I draw from my ability to use armored tanks & winning games through their effective usage. And when folks fire prem ammo at me? I take it as an extra challenge & will do my best to run their credit score into the ground as they have trouble penetrating me.

Racking up those credit bills

Don't worry, they'll get me in the end, after I blocked a stupendous amount of damage, allowing my team to take control of the rest of that area & win the game.

Edit:

OUe_mistake_not, on 17 July 2019 - 09:20 AM, said:

Why do you keep ignoring the disparity between a purple WN8 and a exceptionally low WR? You keep admitting that a high WN8 should correspond with a high WR but fail to address the disparity. Clearly you are not going to admit that your MM is broken and that players are purposefully put on losing streaks, but you can't even come up with a good excuse for it!

Because such combination doesn't' happen over a large number of games. On an evening of games tho? Sure, MM is random after all, so yes, sometimes you get the teams nobody can carry for an evening.

This is balanced out for the times RNG is in your favour & no failure on your part will stop your teams from winning all night long.

That 80% Winstreak? Not your skill, just Random MM being good for you. And that 30% WR the other day? Just random MM being troublesome.

What does skill matter? A skilled person gets good & bad runs, just like less skilled folks. The difference is that the skilled guy gets a 80% WR session & 30% WR session & the not so skilled player gets a 70% WR session & 20% WR session. It's turning that one extra game out of 10 that makes the difference.

Why do you keep ignoring the disparity between a purple WN8 and a exceptionally low WR? You keep admitting that a high WN8 should correspond with a high WR but fail to address the disparity. Clearly you are not going to admit that your MM is broken and that players are purposefully put on losing streaks, but you can't even come up with a good excuse for it!

It is because it is a team game - success in terms of victory or defeat is heavily influenced by team performance. No rigging is required, over the short term variance in result is to be expected for even the best (more likely to win) or worst (more likely to lose) players.

Why do you keep ignoring the disparity between a purple WN8 and a exceptionally low WR? You keep admitting that a high WN8 should correspond with a high WR but fail to address the disparity. Clearly you are not going to admit that your MM is broken and that players are purposefully put on losing streaks, but you can't even come up with a good excuse for it!

If people are purposefully put on losing streaks, it isn't broken, so which is it?

Hint: the answer is "neither", in random systems with limited personal impact you expect to see losses as well as wins regardless of the level of impact. Sometimes you get a good team that wins no matter what you do, sometimes you get a bad team that loses no matter what you do, sometimes you get a bad team but you manage to carry hard anyway and sometimes you and your team have an utter steamroll win. All results are expected to occur.

One can get purple wn8 and low WR easily from causality standpoint, but it does require skill in itself: it isn't really for someone who wouldn't get deep blue-light purple even without. The tactic requires understanding of how much a single player can effect the events leading to victory or loss.

Take a support tank, perferably TD (can also be done in few lights with good guns), play redline damage farming. Done. A player who dedicates one's performance for late game damage farming will, with enough aptitude in tanks he plays, get very high wn8s and low WR due to fact that one makes damage far too late to swing the battle.

Edit: expected WR of such tactic is around 49% +-2. Extremely low WR and extremely high wn8 is an oxymoron over any meaningful number of battles. Anyone can ofc show those 10k+ accs with such combo.

Why do you keep ignoring the disparity between a purple WN8 and a exceptionally low WR? You keep admitting that a high WN8 should correspond with a high WR but fail to address the disparity. Clearly you are not going to admit that your MM is broken and that players are purposefully put on losing streaks, but you can't even come up with a good excuse for it!

The reason i'm not "admitting" it, is there's nothing to admit. People who are good at the game have good winrates, because they are good at the game. Despite RNG and law of averages, people who are better at a game still generally do better than those who don't. It's not an excuse, it's a simple fact.

4nt, on 17 July 2019 - 09:02 AM, said:

One can get purple wn8 and low WR easily from causality standpoint, but it does require skill in itself: it isn't really for someone who wouldn't get deep blue-light purple even without. The tactic requires understanding of how much a single player can effect the events leading to victory or loss.

Take a support tank, perferably TD (can also be done in few lights with good guns), play redline damage farming. Done. A player who dedicates one's performance for late game damage farming will, with enough aptitude in tanks he plays, get very high wn8s and low WR due to fact that one makes damage far too late to swing the battle.

Another also important note is, it's very difficult to get a "low" WR by getting high damage games. Overall through increased damage and optimal and efficient use of your HP vs the enemy, over time this can lead to a victory unless the enemy concentrates on capping, which most do not. That's why most good players have good winrates. If there was rigging, no one would be purple and no one would have over 50% winrate.

Calm down with the replies eekeeboo, people will start to expect actually getting a response to their ill-conceived arguments in the future!

I still have fun in this game - If I didn't, I'd stop playing. Taken plenty of breaks over the years, still find myself back here though as WoT offers something that I clearly enjoy.

I find I have the most fun playing fast, lightly armoured tanks (like the Leo 1). Gold spam? No issue - standard would have penned me anyway. Ridiculously armoured bobject ahead? No issue - relocate/flank/circle. RNG tomfoolery? - No issue - I had my entire crew knocked out yesterday from some EBR HE spam in FL. This is the first time I can recall losing a tank by this means. I also fired a shot from my Progetto, while travelling at full speed, and killed a full speed EBR traveling across my sights at 400m - moral of the story here, RNG helps you as much as it screws you.

Well you could y'know read the forums and make your own research if you aren't convinced... But since it seems you haven't even got a clue what constitutes rigging, I highly doubt anything rational will reach you. Whatever floats your boat, but I find it hypocritical that you still press battle every day multiple times.

It isn't really rocket science. Track the average PR/WR/wn8 of green and blue for 100-1k games (more gives you more reliable results), track all non-killing shots, and track the yellow/green pen results. Come back with results and then you have your point of talking about rigging.

You know that its not done like this. Rigging or random is extremely hard to prove and usually is done by providing access to the code to a third party that then vouches and verifies the game is actually random or within the parameters of what is announced.

I think its something we are going to see in Video games really soon, since there are lots of companies exploiting features and defrauding expectation from the buyers.

You know that its not done like this. Rigging or random is extremely hard to prove and usually is done by providing access to the code to a third party that then vouches and verifies the game is actually random or within the parameters of what is announced.

I think its something we are going to see in Video games really soon, since there are lots of companies exploiting features and defrauding expectation from the buyers.

If nothing can be proved then how do you know "there are lots of companies exploiting features and defrauding expectation"?

You know that its not done like this. Rigging or random is extremely hard to prove and usually is done by providing access to the code to a third party that then vouches and verifies the game is actually random or within the parameters of what is announced.

I think its something we are going to see in Video games really soon, since there are lots of companies exploiting features and defrauding expectation from the buyers.

Ah, but if rigging is indistinguishable from random, why would one call it rigging? Method I've porposed (and many others) would reveal rigging in detail within those parameters that people commonly claim to see rigging in. One could argue a point that since random used by the game is not true random, game is rigged (and that I wouldn't have a problem with). That anyone could really make true random... Altogether different thing.

Diving into code won't do anything to those beliefs that game is rigged. People arguing as such would simply dismiss neutral party's investigation as bought or sample being fixed. Similiarily they wouldn't believe a deepthroat within organisation if he wouldn't say things they expect to hear.

To believe in rigging without considering alternative explanations indicates psychological predisposition, a bias, to believe worst about either fellow man or institutions. Such a bias makes it essentially impossible for them to take steps to confirm their beliefs; such an action would risk their worldview shattering, should the results not come as wished. Ego is an extremely curious piece of human psyche in that way.